| Hola de Peru! We've arrived safely and had a good night's sleep in Lima. All is well. Off to the airport to fly over the Andes mountains today and drive from Tarapoto to Moyobamba. We are safe, healthy, happy, and ready to go! Greetings and love from the group! Bendiciones, Jess |
Saturday, July 29, 2006
Monday, July 24, 2006
Find Your “Ness”
I’m stuck on You, Me, and DuPree. Yes, your associate minister does things normal people do like going to the movies. No, your associate minister does not just sit around singing hymns in her free-time. Owen Wilson, 36 and floundering, is waiting for the mothership (whatever that means—you late-comers will understand) to make clear his “calling” in life. It comes in the form of spreading the word about our finding and preserving our “–ness.” Ness? you ask. Yes, your you-ness. Carl (Matt Dillion) has his own Carlness. I’ve got Jessness. You have you-ness.
Think on anything long enough and it will become theological, but somehow it strikes me this is not an Owen-original, but rather a call for each of us to discover who it is we genuinely have been created to be. Not a call from the world, not a selfish “this is who I am,” but a call of Christ reminding us of who we are and whose we are.
To ness!
(Next blog—Hola de Peru!!!)
I’m stuck on You, Me, and DuPree. Yes, your associate minister does things normal people do like going to the movies. No, your associate minister does not just sit around singing hymns in her free-time. Owen Wilson, 36 and floundering, is waiting for the mothership (whatever that means—you late-comers will understand) to make clear his “calling” in life. It comes in the form of spreading the word about our finding and preserving our “–ness.” Ness? you ask. Yes, your you-ness. Carl (Matt Dillion) has his own Carlness. I’ve got Jessness. You have you-ness.
Think on anything long enough and it will become theological, but somehow it strikes me this is not an Owen-original, but rather a call for each of us to discover who it is we genuinely have been created to be. Not a call from the world, not a selfish “this is who I am,” but a call of Christ reminding us of who we are and whose we are.
To ness!
(Next blog—Hola de Peru!!!)
Monday, July 10, 2006
Not About Us...
In the most recent Christianity Today, Andy Crouch interviewed a bishop from Africa and what would be the most helpful gospel-thing North American Christians can do. The Rt. Rev. Dr. David Zac Niringliye tells it like it is. He observes that North American Christians greatest threat is our power--that we view it as something for our success.
Crouch:"What couuld equip [North American Christians] to be more countercultural, living in a nation that is very much at the center of power?"
Niringliye: "We need to begin to read the Bible differently. Americans have been preoccupied with the end of the Gospel of Matthew, the Great Commission: 'Go and make.' I call them go-and-make missionaries. These are the go-and-fix-it people. The go-and-make people are those who act like it's all in our power, and all we have to do is 'finish the task.' They love that passage! But when read from the center of power, that passage simply reinforces the illusion that it's about us, that we are in charge.
"I would like to suggest a new favorite passage, the Great Invitation. It's what we find if we read from the beginning of the Gospels rather than the end. Jesus says, 'Come, follow me. I will make you fishers of men.' Not 'Go and make,' but 'I will make you.' It's all about Jesus."
(Christianity Today, "Experiencing Life at the Margins: An African Bishop Tells North American Christians the Most Helpful Gospel-thing They Can Do," an interview by Andy Crouch, p. 34)
In the most recent Christianity Today, Andy Crouch interviewed a bishop from Africa and what would be the most helpful gospel-thing North American Christians can do. The Rt. Rev. Dr. David Zac Niringliye tells it like it is. He observes that North American Christians greatest threat is our power--that we view it as something for our success.
Crouch:"What couuld equip [North American Christians] to be more countercultural, living in a nation that is very much at the center of power?"
Niringliye: "We need to begin to read the Bible differently. Americans have been preoccupied with the end of the Gospel of Matthew, the Great Commission: 'Go and make.' I call them go-and-make missionaries. These are the go-and-fix-it people. The go-and-make people are those who act like it's all in our power, and all we have to do is 'finish the task.' They love that passage! But when read from the center of power, that passage simply reinforces the illusion that it's about us, that we are in charge.
"I would like to suggest a new favorite passage, the Great Invitation. It's what we find if we read from the beginning of the Gospels rather than the end. Jesus says, 'Come, follow me. I will make you fishers of men.' Not 'Go and make,' but 'I will make you.' It's all about Jesus."
(Christianity Today, "Experiencing Life at the Margins: An African Bishop Tells North American Christians the Most Helpful Gospel-thing They Can Do," an interview by Andy Crouch, p. 34)
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